Danchat

Game Thread: Indians @ Twins, 6/3 @ 1:10 CT Probable Starters: Mike Clevinger (4-2, 3.14 ERA) vs Kyle Gibson (1-3, 3.57 ERA) - 4 Thoughts - 1. Arbitrary Twins splits I love the excess amount of splits Baseball Reference has for each player. Let’s pull out some arbitrary splits for our starting hitters for the 2018 season. Mitch Garver Home- .734 OPS Away- .585 OPS - Miguel Sano In Wins- .970 OPS In Losses- .614 OPS - Brian Dozier 6th Inning- 1.402 OPS 9th Inning- .301 OPS - Ehire Adrianza (Career) July- .280 B.A. March-April- .216 B.A. - Eduardo Escobar In a 2-1 Count- 1.364 OPS In a 1-2 Count- .268 OPS - Logan Morrison 2 Outs, RISP- .931 OPS Within 1 Run- .579 OPS - Eddie Rosario Vs Blue Jays- 1.462 OPS Vs Yankees- .154 OPS - Max Kepler 2 outs- .987 OPS 0 outs- .665 OPS - Robbie Grossman (Career) In Wins- 103/164 BB/K In Losses- 120/235 BB/K - Well, I hope you’ve learned a thing or two from these totally random splits! - 2. Cleveland’s bullpen Gaze upon their stats and despair: Look at those ERAs! This is bad… you can tell the situation is dire because they’re trying old Twins retreads (Belisle and Ramirez). The usual gang, Otero, McAllister, and Olsen have been surprising pedestrian. And it’s not like retaining Bryan Shaw would have helped – he’s got a 5.72 ERA and 1.52 WHIP (oh, and he’s leading the league in games appeared for the third straight season!!). At this point, the Indians would love to have the Twins’ bullpen over what they have. - But what could they do? They did just pick up Oliver Perez, a 36-year-old reliever who posted a 4.64 ERA in 33 innings with the Nationals last year, though it was backed up by a 3.82 FIP, 10.6 K/9, and 1.33 WHIP. It’s a step in the right direction, but they should search the trade market for another option. - 3. Lineups CLEVELAND 1. Francisco Lindor (S) SS 2. Michael Brantley (L) LF 3. Jose Ramirez (S) DH 4. Edwin Encarnacion ® 1B 5. Jason Kipnis (L) 2B 6. Yan Gomes ® C 7. Greg Allen (S) RF 8. Bradley Zimmer (L) CF 9. Erik Gonzalez ® 3B TWINS 1. Brian Dozier ® 2B 2. Eddie Rosario (L) LF 3. Miguel Sano ® 3B 4. Logan Morrison (L) 1B 5. Eduardo Escobar (S) SS 6. Max Kepler (L) RF 7. Robbie Grossman (S) DH 8. Ryan LaMarre ® CF 9. Bobby Wilson ® C - 4. Strat-O-Matic Baseball Yes, it’s time for another round of Strat-O-Matic Baseball simulation! As the Twins game progresses in reality, I will be synchronously playing a round of Strat-O-Matic baseball with the same two teams using their stats. I will upload a picture of my setup of the game: As you can see, I’ve developed my own way to simulate the game instead of using the typical cards for each player. The 2018 player cards won’t be available until the end of the year and they’re somewhat expensive, so I’ll use my makeshift methods and see if the result can mimic what happens today. In a game thread last year, here’s what happened: Real life: HOU 5, MIN 3; Strat-O-Matic: HOU 8, MIN 7 - After every half-inning is over, I’ll post what happened over here in Strat-O-Land. Let’s see if we can get a win at Target Field and in the board game!

Cool, I didn't think we'd get to see Littell quite yet. He's still young and he'll likely need more time at AAA, but it'll be great to see him pitch for the first time. I think he can be a solid #4 starter in the majors if things go right. It also reminds me how good of a deal the Jaime Garcia flip was - getting Littell and Enns for Ynoa was a fantastic flip. By the way, Huascar Ynoa is struggling at single A for the Braves right now (5.62 ERA, 1.51 WHIP).

Lynn clearly has the stuff to be a good starter, as he only gave up 2 hits in 6 innings, but he just has to figure out his command. If he continues to straighten things out, I think he can be a solid middle of the road starter for us. Also, it's odd how the Twins struck out 15 times but still scored 7 runs. And Sano wasn't even in the lineup.

Yeah, but all the other teams in the AL except for Baltimore and Texas can probably beat us. We've already been swept by the Rays, the Mariners, and the Yankees...

Thanks for covering for me on such a short notice, sampleSizeOfOne. I'll be back for tomorrow's game thread and I'll be preparing for the return of a synchronous Strat-o-matic Twins game. Anyways, let's go Twins!

Eh, we'll see about that, I still think teams would be more willing to pay Dozier more than Esco. Not by much, but let's remember most of us didn't even think of Eduardo as a starter this season.

Escobar seems to have a bit of a clutch factor to him, but I don't have any stats to back that up at the moment. I do know Dozier's RISP isn't very good.

Nice win, now they only need 7 more in a row to get to .500. And 8 in a row to stay above .500. Yup, it isn't going to be easy.

I once thought Escobar's 21 HRs was a fluke. I don't think that anymore.

Well, there's LaMarre's first XBH for ya!

Nah, it's not pressure, these bad stretches are actually common for him. Check out his career OPS by month: March/April: .688 May: .727 June: .854 July: .719 August .886 Sept-Oct .767 Career Batting Average March-May: .232 June - Oct: .259

I mean, it's possible, but I think it's fair to say that Polanco could be in a slump as well, plus his defense can range from average to mediocre, so it's not guaranteed that his suspension has hurt the team has much as some think it has.

Wow, Cleveland's bullpen is pretty bad. And man, did Sano need that HR or what? Time for our offense to get in a groove!

Well, good stuff from Duffey. Let's see if the offense can take advantage of a weak Cleveland bullpen.

Granite is hitting .206 with zero power and next-to-zero XBH ability at AAA. I see him more as a DFA candidate than an option in the majors. Wade needs to be called up ASAP. He has nothing left to accomplish at AA and should at least be at AAA right now.

Boy, it feels like we're picking up right off from the 2016 season. Did the 2017 season even happen? So I think it's safe to say that Cleveland is as good as some of us thought here, it'd simply take them a bit to heat up. They have the talent to easily win this division.

Gameday is telling me after every bat: "in play, run(s)". Please stop!

I'm not a fan of Duffey coming up, but Busenitz did just throw 2 innings at AAA. Duffey will probably get some work today seeing how the score's going. I'm about ready to give up on Tyler, as he hasn't shown any promise since his stretch as a starter in 2015, but I don't have any objections if they're going to use him as a mop-up pitcher.

Busenitz/Moya/Gonsalves/Littell (don't know how much rest they've had). Plenty of options...

They're coming back the Dozier way, going for solo HRs. It's too bad they haven't heard of this one strategy where you get guys on base and then you hit a HR...

Yikes. Good thing Slegers is up here because this might be Romero's first clunker...

I'll have to give you credit, Thrylos, you might be right about Santana being irrelevant this year [context from an earlier article]. This is trending in the Santiago 2017 direction - he couldn't regain his velocity during his rehab and now he's a shell of his former self. Here's hoping Ervin can find a way to get his speed back and find a way back on the roster late in the year.

Escobar did a solid job replacing him, but once Sano went down and Adrianza became the everyday SS, that's when we started feeling it.

Boy, the decision to have Buxton skip rehab was a terrible idea. I get that they wanted him back badly, but boy did things backfire. And now Grossman will resume hitting in a full time role. Ugh.